More Than a Chemical Reaction
by Marie Chontelle
Summary: James POV... there comes an incredibly sweet innocence with any person confused enough to look up the definition of love. so naturally james cant help but be curious when he finds lily in the library, dictionary in hand. "what cant she know?" LE/JP 7th yr


**Hello there! I was thinking of this for some reason, and I just ended up with a fun little Lily/James fic! Enjoy! (even though it's probably not my best work…)**

**P.S.-there will be future chapters, if you'd like to read them, and Google helped me with the definition of love. Sorry, I can't claim that.**

**DISCLAIMER: Theses Characters and setting belong to J.K. Rowling! :D (sorry, I can't claim that either)**

**Seventh Year.**

**James POV**

"Hello, Lily. What're you reading?" I asked curiously, as I sat down at Lily's table in the library.

"Oh! Um, the dictionary. I was unsure of a definition, you see…" This made me very confused, seeing as Lily was so intelligent, I was certain she knew everything there was to know about everything, especially words and vocabulary.

"May I ask what the word was?" It slipped out of my mouth before I could help myself. I sounded like a complete idiot; prying into what she was doing… it wasn't any of my business what word she didn't know. _I just hope this doesn't set her off…_ I thought, silently praying that she wouldn't hex me.

"If you promise not to laugh. It's kind of silly." she answered as if she was unsure of herself, which surprised me, seeing as she had always been very self-confident. Even though Lily and I had been Head students together for a few months now, I had rarely seen this side of her.

"Why would I laugh? It's just a word… as long as you didn't look up the word 'wizard.'" she cracked a smirk, one that looked like my own, that was also plastered to my face as well.

"Well, you see… I felt the need to look up the word 'love'."

"That's very interesting… but why did you need to look that up? It's not really something that can be defined." _I mean, 'love' is something that's different for everyone, not a single person can define it perfectly… in the dictionary, it should say 'non-definable'… _I thought to myself, but didn't interrupt, seeing as she was about to say something.

"Oh contraire, smarty pants, it definitely has a definition. But I wanted to look this word up in particular, because I couldn't help but wonder if it was just a chemical reaction towards another person, triggered by an instinct in the body that tells us to procreate." _Well, I should've seen that coming… very logical, just like always. I wonder what it would be like seeing her let loose…. However, I should pay attention to what she's saying. She has a very good point._ I inwardly laughed at my own musings.

"Very smart indeed, Lilykins! Well, what have you come up with?" I was grinning, leaning forward on the edge of my seat, anxiously awaiting precious Lily's answer. Lily saw my impatience growing, and didn't keep her newfound knowledge from me for long.

"Here it says that 'Love is more than a chemical reaction, or even an emotion. It is a state of mind and heart that thrives when we choose to nurture it.' Even though that doesn't exactly make sense, you see. This book makes it seem like we can't pick who we fall in love with, but we can choose to act on what we start feeling-even though in my opinion it would seem very hard to fall out of love with someone- My question is; can you fall in love with more than one person?

"I mean, I once thought I was in love, but then my heart was broken and I've loathed him since… and now I think I've fallen in love again, but I don't know what the signs are, and I don't know if it's real. I don't ever want to feel that pain again, even though it ebbed quickly, only to surface occasionally. If it had been real love, it wouldn't have ended like that, right? I mean-"

"Lily, love. You need to breathe, no matter how many words you're trying to cram into one breath. It lets me know that you're human even though you seem to know everything, so I don't have to worry" I playfully teased Lily, and smiled at her shocked face. She was taken aback by how long she'd been talking.

I could feel the inside of his chest crumbling. '_who could she be in love with?'_ I wondered, feeling the shards of his broken dreams, pierce and puncture my heart endlessly, until I thought that I was surely going to die of internal bleeding. I just couldn't believe how badly this hurt. Then it hit me: _'Who __had __she been in love with? That awful, brainless person that hurt her so badly. It couldn't have been me, could it? I don't think I missed any chance, seeing as I've been trying to get her to go out with my since third year… What if she liked me before that? And my stupid player-attitude and actions hurt her?_

Lily then woke me up with a snap of her fingers.

"Oi! James, what's that look? You look like… Well, I can't even describe what you look like honestly. It's that bad." Lily said when he turned his attention to her.

I wanted so badly to ask her all of these questions that happened to be plaguing my brain. But they couldn't just have a talk on _that _topic in the middle of the library, could they? I mean, it would be different if they were in the Head's common room… _'That's it!' _I immediately replaced my terrible grimace with a friendly grin.

"Lily, would you like to continue this conversation in the Head common room? You know how I feel about extended periods of time in the library…," my voice sounded light and airy-even in a whisper-, which was exactly what I was going for. Hopefully, she would agree and they could get somewhere with this topic without feeling too awkward, seeing as this was a very public place.

"Sure, I was beginning to feel a draft in here anyway. We can go now, seeing as the dictionary's actually mine… There's just something about reading books in a library that makes me focus." she giggled-actually giggled-and smiled a happy smile as she started walking towards the corridor they needed to take to get back to their dorms.

Of course I followed her, lagging a bit behind, thinking about everything she had said, but it just made me feel and awful pain in my chest, so I decided to keep quiet until we got there.

On the way we had heard our footsteps click and bounce off of the castle walls. Today was a Saturday, and most were off at the three broomsticks, seeing as it was a Hogsmeade weekend. I had over-slept, and decided not to brave the fierce winds, but I had no idea why Lily had stayed behind. I guess it wasn't a bad thing though, seeing as I get to spend more time with her this way.

Finally, we reached the portrait of a knight riding his noble stead, leading his army into battle. We both stopped, looked at the knight, who demanded the password once he saw that we had Head badges on our robes (good idea, looking for our Heads badges so he didn't demand a password from anyone strolling by that just happened to stop and look at the canvas).

I looked at Lily, and then said; "Thestral cabbage" and we were granted entry to our tower.

"I'm just going to go put my bag up in my room, and I'll be right down." Lily said with a slight smile, and walked at a brisk pace up the stairs.

I decided to sit down on the comfiest couch, right in front of the fire. I was incredibly nervous, and I did my best to push all thoughts from the front of my mind. I could feel my palms break into a clammy sweat, and I glanced up at Lily's door every few seconds, wishing that she could hurry up, relieving me from my thoughts.

"Back" she said cheerily, and sat down next to me. _How did I not notice that she'd come down? Oh, I was avoiding the whole 'thinking' part… maybe I should allow __some __thinking next time, hopefully there won't be a next time, though…_ I smiled back, and she said,

"What exactly is _your _take on love?"

This question was completely unexpected, but I had been ready to answer it. My parents had always been deeply in love, and took enjoyment out of lecturing me on it daily when I was little. Then, naturally I grew out of it and thought girls were 'icky'. Of course, I don't anymore.

"Well, Lily-flower, I hope you're comfortable, because this is something that everyone's been learning about their whole lives, especially me.

"What I've come to gather about it all, is that it's definitely very complicated. Love is something that you don't have control over, how strongly it's felt or to whom you feel it towards. I think everyone knows to some extent what it's like to be in love. We get the stomach-flutters, and our heads spin, our knees go weak, and we feel like we can't breathe. Being in love is like being suspended in your own temporary moment of pure happiness.

"Before I go further, I would like to remind you that you already cleared up the 'chemical reaction' thing, and that it's not true. Now, you were wondering whether you could love more than one person. Of course you can, silly Lily! You love your family-not in Sirius' case, though-, and we love our pets, and then of course we find someone we love romantically.

"I don't think you can love more than one person romantically at the same time. You referred to someone you loved romantically before, but you don't love them now. Then you said that you _thought _you might love someone now, but almost don't want it to be true, so that you don't get hurt. But the thing about love, is that it wouldn't exist without risks. Don't get me wrong, fear is certainly _not _apart of love, whatsoever.

"To be in love, just means that you were willing to take the risk of letting someone in, trusting them, accepting their faults as apart of what makes them who they are. The next risk you have to take though, is accepting that you feel this way. Then the risk after that, is letting your feelings grow inside of you until you're ready to burst because you're so happy." I was teetering on edge, because I had something in mind, and I didn't know how Lily was going to feel about it.

"And the final risk?" Lily asked in a curious whisper. We were getting closer, a millimeter per second, and when our noses were a mere centimeter away, I could barely breath out, "You act on it" before our eyes simultaneously closed, and our lips brushed innocently against each others for a moment that seemed to last forever, before we both broke away.

We hadn't moved very far, because I knew that our foreheads were almost touching. Her eyes had the same usual intensity, only turned up as high as they could go. Her bright green eyes bore into mine so deeply I felt like she was able to read into my soul. I tried my best to break down all of the meanings in her gaze, and I hadn't even realized that I had whispered her name until I heard myself say it.

Before I could process anything, she had leaned forward and pressed her lips less tentatively to mine, for a few moments longer than the last, and then drew back and laid her head in my lap.

The last thing I heard before I lay down next to her on the red couch was "Goodnight, James." and we both fell asleep.

**A.N. Well that was pretty cute, I think! I'm hoping to make this a multi-chapter (so we figure out how their friends react, if they're really together, ect. because it's always fun to read about that part) if you want, but it works well as a one-shot… tell me what you think-even if you hated it, just tell me what to fix-, and if you want me to continue! I hope you review (even if it's just a smiley face, I love those! They say so much while taking up so little time and so little room), or add this to favorites, or story alert, or something and if you don't, I'll still love you for reading!**

**:] Marie Chontelle**


End file.
